


Dodge no bullets

by Hagar



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Asynchronuous Development, Character Study, Gen, Gifted Isabelle Lightwood, Giftedness, POV Female Character, POV Gifted Character, Pre-Canon, Single POV
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-29
Updated: 2016-10-29
Packaged: 2018-08-27 18:50:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8412694
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hagar/pseuds/Hagar
Summary: When Isabelle was eight years old, she Marked a crate with two runes: the first to Lock it, the second to make it Invisible. In this makeshift vault, Isabelle could keep her treasures.
A character study of Izzy's early life, or: How does a highborn Gifted girl ends up rediscovering Humanism, anyway?





	

When Isabelle was eight years old, she Marked a crate with two runes: the first to Lock it so only her stele can open it, and the second to Deflect attention and make it effectively invisible. In the crate - now a makeshift vault - Isabelle could put her treasures to keep.

 _You can read this book but on two conditions,_ Idina told her when Isabelle was five and Idina had just brought her the first Forbidden Book: _no-one can know, and you can’t keep it. Mundanes have places called “public libraries”,_ Idina explained when Isabelle demanded to know why she had to give the book back (that a Mundane book had to be kept an absolute secret was obvious to her, even then); _You can borrow any book you want from a public library, any book at all, so long as you bring it back in the same condition you got it in._

That Idina got her knowledge from Mundane books explained something that five-years-old Isabelle has been wondering about for a while, yet couldn’t find anyone who’d answer her question (they said they didn’t know, and Isabelle already knew what happened to little children who called adults out on their lies): why no-one _liked_ Idina, even though she was the one they all called on when anything broke - anything, that is, that wasn’t operated by runes. It didn’t bring Isabelle any closer to understanding _why_ Mundane knowledge wasn’t as important even though it kept the power on and the water running, but it at least explained why Idina wasn’t valued - at least, not as much as other Shadowhunters at the Institute.

All this thinking about Mundane knowledge made Isabelle realize something else, though, and that was her happiest discovery yet. Mundane knowledge was _developed._ The runes were graced upon Shadowhunters, a gift they could use but never hope to understand. Mundane knowledge, though - anyone could learn that; even Isabelle, if she could keep her parents from finding out what she was doing. That turned out to be easier than she expected: even Shadowhunters had to learn some math, and even Isabelle’s mother would admit Idina was the best tutor at the Institute for that.

For a while, all Isabelle and Idina had to do was pretend Isabelle wasn’t learning _quite_ as fast as she was, and fill that time with secret knowledge. Then Isabelle made her vault, so she could keep her books and her notebooks and keep working at them even when the lights were out. When Isabelle was very nearly eleven, she got her father to arrange a proper study for her by letting him find her vault, which by then had as many Shadowhunter books as Mundane ones - just, books intended for older children, older than Alec, even.

By age fourteen Isabelle had forced the matter of an internet connection at the Institute and was working her way through what Mundanes called _college material._ Rather than offer help in face of Isabelle’s first, clumsy - unavoidably _unskilled_ \- attempts to not look like the child she no longer was, her mother said that _trying_ was for those who had something to prove, and real women had no need to do. Isabelle ignored her, but then, by that age she’d learned: Mundane skills weren’t in any way lesser than Shadowhunter ones, but some Shadowhunters had to pretend they were, in order to feel as if their lives were worth living.

The corollary to _Mundane skills aren’t lesser_ was, _Just because it’s Mundane doesn’t mean anyone can do it._ The Mundanes had a word for it, for people who just had a knack for learning. She wondered if this was what Idina had seen, these years back - that made her hand Isabelle that first book. Isabelle would never know which had it been - Idina’s been dead for years, _Some demon_ the best anyone knew or cared to tell - but she knew what she wanted the truth to be.

Like a prized falcon to a hunter, that’s how precious Gifted children were, in the Mundane world: like Jace to their mother in this one. Even had she been born Mundane, Isabelle would’ve still been raised on the same guilt, the same message that she owed the world and was owned by it, debt for a gift she’d never asked for. Shadowhunter skills weren’t worth more; Mundane lives weren’t. Either way, you didn’t get to dodge no bullets.

 


End file.
